Sleep By Alex Podcast Ep 3 - My Baby Wakes up at 5:00 am!
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Welcome to the Sleep by Alex podcast. I am a certified pediatric sleep consultant and a mom of three, and I will be bringing you quick science backed sleep advice to get you and your baby or toddler sleeping well
Hey everyone. We are back with another episode, episode three. I can't believe it. It officially feels real now that I'm on the third episode. I don't know why. It's like, yay, we're doing this. Thank you so much for tuning in. I'm so glad you're here. Today we are diving into the topic of early morning Wake up.
Oh my gosh. I'm sure we've all been there. When you hear your baby stirring at 4 45 and you're like, what the hell? I am not ready to start the day.
This topic was inspired by another lovely listener question. Thank you so much for sending your questions into the email. I appreciate it, and it's been so nice to feel like I'm just having a conversation with you on [00:01:00] this podcast.
This question is from Sierra. I'll read it really quick and then we will dive in.
Hi Alex. Love that you're doing a podcast. So my question is about early wake up, our nine month old can self settle. A typical day might look like wake up at 5:00 AM Oh, I'm sorry. We really try and keep her in our room, in her cot, but she is getting upset and fussy after a while, which I don't want.
Nap eight 30 ish can be an hour and 15 minutes to two hours and 15 minutes. The next nap, three and a half hours after the last nap ended, that nap can be anywhere between 60 and 90 minutes, and then bedtime three and a half hours or four hours after the last nap ends usually lands around eight o'clock for her naps.
I usually let her sleep as long as she needs to and don't wake her,
she is also given one feed at night around three o'clock or whenever she wakes. I've read online that total sleep for this [00:02:00] age should be up to 14 hours, but our baby usually gets maximum 12 and a half hours.
I tried one day giving her less napping time, but she still wakes between five and six. What can I do? I really can't do the five o'clock wake up anymore. Thank you for all your information, Sierra.
Ugh, Sierra, you are not alone. If any of you have had those days with your baby where you're starting the day at 4 45 or five 15, you are so not alone. Today we are going to jump into why your baby may be waking up early and how to gently shift those mornings later. At the end of the podcast, I'm gonna circle back to Sierra's question to give her some specific advice for her exact scenario.
So stick around till the end. We'll spend some time diving into every reason for early morning wake up and all the strategies I have to tackle them, and that at the end I will dive [00:03:00] specifically into Sierra's question and hopefully get her some next steps. So stick around until then.
Okay. First, let's clarify what an early morning wake up is. What is considered early. Technically for a baby, anything before 6:00 AM is an early morning wake up and I know what you're thinking, . Six o'clock. That's so early. I don't wanna start my day then. Okay. I get this and believe me. Sometimes we can get our babies on a later schedule.
Some people have been able to push their babies to, you know, a nine o'clock bedtime and an eight o'clock wake time because it works better for them and their babies can roll with that. But let me just tell you, not every baby is going to be able to do this. Most babies biologically will start their day naturally, sometime between six and 7:00 AM I know it's early.
But just know that it's very normal and typical.
Okay, so what [00:04:00] if your baby is waking up before six o'clock?
I have six main reasons I'm going to jump into as to why your baby could be waking up early.
Okay? The first reason for early morning wake up is some issue with the time your baby is going to bed. Now this can be a too late or too early bedtime. If your baby's bedtime is too late, they can actually have less restful sleep and wake up earlier. I know this seems counterintuitive, like if my baby goes to bed later, wouldn't they wake up later?
. But if you've been a parent for a while, let's say you have an older kid, a toddler, then you know exactly what I am talking about. You go to that fun 4th of July party, your toddler is having a blast. They don't go to bed until nine 30 when they usually go to bed at seven 30 and you are praying that they sleep until nine the next day so [00:05:00] that everyone can catch up on a rest.
But they end up getting up even earlier than they normally would've gotten up. What in the world? Why does this happen? It's because having too long of a day and too late of a bedtime can lead to overt tiredness, stay tuned because I'm actually gonna circle back to this at the end when I address Sierra's question, because this could possibly be helpful for her situation.
Now, if your baby is going to bed too early, this can mean that your baby fills up their sleep tank needs by 5:00 AM. So if your baby is going to bed at 6:30 PM and they only need 11 hours of night's sleep, they might be awake and ready to rock and roll at five 30 in the morning.
Now bedtime sort of leads us right into reason number two for early morning wake up. It's along the same lines, but a tad different overt [00:06:00] tiredness or under tiredness. Even if you've nailed the perfect time, your baby should be going to bed. Over tiredness and under tiredness can still be contributing to early morning wake up.
This part mainly has to do with your baby's wake windows. I'm sure you know this by now if you're listening to this podcast, but a awake window is the amount of time your baby is awake before they need to sleep. If your baby is awake for too long or too short before they go to bed, they may wake up early in the morning
okay. Reason number three goes off of the last two as well. Reason number three for early morning wake up can be a nap schedule issue. There's a few things to touch on here. If your baby is napping for too long during the day, they might not need as much nighttime sleep.
On the flip side of that, and I know that's gonna feel frustrating and confusing,
but if your baby is not napping enough during the [00:07:00] day, they might also wake up more frequently at night or wake up early in the morning, tired and cranky and fussy. So, yes. Both too much and not enough. Daytime sleep can lead to this, but usually we're looking at their demeanor and what their days look like.
Finally with nap schedule issues is your baby's morning nap might be too early. For example, if your baby is six months old with a two hour morning wake window and they wake up five o'clock, so you lay them down for their nap at seven o'clock, their body's gonna be used to waking early and getting that early morning nap.
If you are offering that morning nap too early, they're going to continue waking at that early morning time. Their body is just going to be used to that.
Okay. That concludes all of the reasons that have to do with wake windows, over tiredness, under tiredness, nap schedules, all of that stuff. Now we're going to move on to three more reasons that your baby could be waking up early,
and I find the last one to be the [00:08:00] most important, so stay tuned.
Reason number four, your baby could be waking up early. Is a sleep environment issue. So sometimes early in the morning, light can begin to creep into your baby's room,
If even a tiny bit of light is seeping into your baby's room in the early morning hours, when they do sort of move around and stir and look around and maybe see a little bit of light coming into their room, they're gonna have a harder time getting back to sleep,
if you feel like this might be happening with your baby, pull out all the stops to black out the room as dark as possible.
The darker it is in the room, the better when it comes to sleeping in those morning hours.
Another sleep environment thing to consider is noise. Maybe by five 30 you or your toddler is up, maybe you or your partner is getting ready for work. There's just a little bit of movement going on in the house that wasn't going on all night long, and then the early morning hours, there's just less sleep pressure.
It's harder to sleep between those like 3:00 AM to 5:00 AM [00:09:00] times. So if there's any light or any movement or sounds going on, this can mean it's hard for your baby to sleep in.
Okay, we've nailed sleep environment. Now we're on to reason number five, hunger. This is especially for any baby nine months old or under. And you're thinking, what, nine months old? Yes, absolutely. A majority of babies will hang on to that early morning feed, sometimes lands somewhere between three and 5:00 AM once again until nine-ish months.
This is so normal. Your baby may just need to be fed in the early morning hours to help them make it to a later wake up time.
Okay, reason number six and what I find to be the most important reason, especially after three babies of my own, holy moly, did I finally figure this out by the third baby and he's two and a half and still sleeps till seven 30. Thank goodness.
Habit wake up or parental [00:10:00] reinforcement. This is a big one. So here are some things you may be doing that's making it a habit for your baby to wake up before six o'clock. One might be you bring them into your bed when they have that five o'clock wake up and they get to sleep with you the rest of the morning.
Your baby can get used to wanting to sleep with you in those hours and may continue waking at that time if you're bringing them into your bed. Now, if you like bringing them into your bed at five in the morning and you don't mind it at all and you all sleep together and you're okay with that, wake up then please keep doing so.
If you are doing that and every day you're wishing, gosh, I wish they weren't waking up at this time, and I wish I could have the morning to myself, then that could be something you might wanna consider eliminating. Another thing you might be doing is just getting them up and starting their day. When they wake up early, so you hear them stir at five 30, so you just pop outta your bed, you throw out your slippers, you go get them, you turn on the light and you start the day.
[00:11:00] Their body is gonna get used to getting up and starting the day at that time. Babies love patterns and fall into them very easily. So if you start that day at five 30 for a handful of days in a row, their body is going to get used to that and they're gonna start treating that as their morning wake up time.
Okay, so now let's get you some actionable next steps for fixing your baby's early mornings. First, you're gonna go set up their sleep space for success, okay? You're gonna black out their room, you're gonna have a white noise machine. You're gonna make sure they have a nice, cool, quiet environment to sleep in.
Awesome check. Done.
Next, you're gonna optimize your baby's daytime schedule. You're going to be looking at what time they're going to bed, what time they're napping, how long they're napping. They're wake windows. Are they overtired? Are they under tired? Of course. I wish I could dive into your specific baby's schedule and get you that exact answer.
If you're tired of Googling and researching, please just hop into the membership or book a quick call. We can get this done today.
But optimizing their daytime schedule is going to be a huge piece of this.
Next, you're going to [00:12:00] tweak what you're doing in the mornings. You are gonna do your best to treat that early morning, wake up as a night wake up, whether it means they need to be fed and put back to sleep. Whether it means you're leaving them in their crib until the desired wake time Whether it means you're gonna go in there and hold them in their rocker until as close to that desired wake time as you can.
Whether that means you're gonna start pushing their morning nap as close to your desired nap time as you can. We really wanna spend a couple weeks getting their body used to starting the day later,
Maybe you're deciding not to bring them in your bed anymore in the early mornings, whatever it may be that you need to tweak about your morning routine, you're gonna do that next.
Finally, what I will say is if your baby is not falling asleep independently, so they need to be rocked or fed or padded to fall asleep at bedtime. Or they are requiring nursing or rocking back to sleep. Anytime they wake up all night long or they need to come into your bed in the middle of the night, or they need to come into your bed in the morning to sleep, they may continue waking [00:13:00] early.
So really, honestly, before all of this other stuff, you really wanna start with the fundamentals of independent sleep. If you haven't done that already.
Let me just say a few final things before I circle all the way back to Sierra's question and get her some actionable next steps.
I wanna remind you to have realistic expectations. Change takes time. Don't choose something to try for a day or two, and it didn't work. So you try another thing for a day or two and it didn't work, so you try another thing. Pick one thing that seems the most relevant. Stay consistent with it for a week, if not two weeks before deciding.
Yeah, this is not our issue. We're gonna move on to the other strategies. It can take a few days to a couple weeks to help your baby's body clock sort of reset. So don't give up. Stay patient, stay consistent. And as always, instead of wasting weeks [00:14:00] on end trying a bunch of different things, hop on the phone with me and let's just figure out right away what could be causing your early morning wake up.
Okay, Sierra, thank you for being patient. I'm circling back to your exact question. Your baby is nine months old. Waking up at five in the morning can already self settle, which is amazing.
Usually awake three to four hours at a time, taking two naps a day and going to bed around eight. So let's talk about your steps here.
Okay, I am gonna throw a few things at you. Are you ready? The first is your baby has a really long day. Your baby's starting the day at five in the morning and not going to bed until eight o'clock. That is quite a long day for a baby this age, and even though you're following age appropriate wake windows.
She may be getting overtired and it's causing that early morning wake up. Bedtime is too late. Her day is too long. Most babies this age are gonna need like a 12 to 13 hour day. So with a 5:00 AM wake up, I would expect her to be ready for bed at like five or 6:00 PM which obviously we don't [00:15:00] want. So let's talk about how to shift that.
Right now your baby's body is really used to waking up and starting the day at five o'clock. So the first thing you're gonna do as you implement all of this is not start the day at five no matter what. Okay? I know you have life to live.
But really the sooner you can treat five o'clock as the middle of the night until at least six o'clock, the better.
As we talked about earlier, you need to find a method that jives with your baby's temperament and your needs and your wishes. But you have the option of leaving her for as long as you're comfortable closer to that desired wake time. You have an option of sitting with her in her room until that desired wake time, maybe feeding her and getting her back to sleep until at least six o'clock.
Really the goal is we're not like having awake voices and say, good morning and turning on the light until six o'clock.
Even if she doesn't end up going back to sleep, waiting until six o'clock to turn on the lights, say good morning and start her day is going to be super helpful for you.
This is not a quick fix. You're gonna have to do this [00:16:00] for a couple weeks for it to start to solidify, we just wanna get her body used to not starting the day at that five o'clock hour.
Now from there for the rest of the day,
I would switch up your baby's daytime schedule a little bit so that we can get bedtime earlier and we can get on , a more predictable clock based routine. So I'm just gonna throw out an example schedule for you. Of course, you can tweak and move things around depending on her needs and your needs.
This is just a starting point and an example. But , it could look something like 6:00 AM wake up first nap, nine o'clock to 10 32nd nap, one 30 to three and bedtime seven o'clock. We wanna get her four hours of awake time before bed, . But bedtime by seven or seven 30 is going to be ideal. For the situation.
Try this out. See how it goes. Report back to me and let me know
if any of you would like a quick chat with me where we can specifically nail down next steps for you and your baby, please just reach out and let me know.
You can book a call with me right away so we can get you on track.
[00:17:00] If you're still feeling confused about your baby's early morning wake up, or you feel like you've tried all of this and nothing has helped, or you're having a hard time deciphering like, is my baby. Under tired or overtired, or you would like a step-by-step individualized strategy in that independent sleep piece, which is that really big piece of the puzzle, then please go to the show notes.
All of my resources and information are in there I'd be happy to help you through every step of the way of this.
I do have a special offer for you as well. If you would like to give the Sleep By Alex membership a try, all of my listeners can use the Code Podcast and get 50% off your first month. You can come ask me your questions, you can download my guides. You can go through the course every single month in the membership.
I also do group sleep learning, so. Our next one is actually starting next [00:18:00] Thursday, May 1st, and what this entails is joining the membership and watching the whole course and coming to our live kickoff call next Thursday. That's where you can ask me any questions that have come up since watching the course.
That's where we can troubleshoot your baby's daytime schedule before you get started. That's where I can actually help you pick a sleep learning method that you would like to use. Then you go ahead and get started whenever you're ready and throughout the month we have multiple live calls in which you can come and share your progress.
Ask your questions and let me know what you have going on. Of course, in between the live calls, you can send me your questions anytime in the membership as well. So if you'd like to try this out. I have the link in the show notes and remember to use the code podcast that's going to get you 50% off your first month.
Thank you so much for listening to this episode. On one hand, I'm sorry you're here because it means that your baby's waking up really early. But on the other hand, I'm really grateful you're here because every [00:19:00] listener truly means so much to me. If you could subscribe to the podcast, leave a review, share with a friend, I greatly appreciate every single download.
All right, everybody. Have a lovely week. We'll see you next time.
